with your company. let's talk about alpha company. where were you? >> i was, i guess, about 20 minutes flying time east of lzx. 20, 30 minutes flying time, i think. i was with a platoon and with the company headquarters of i think the 1st platoon and the weapons platoon were together. so they picked me up. there were eight helicopters, as i recall. >> the first lift in? >> no. the first lift in was b company. >> b company went in first, so you're the second? >> i'm the second lifting. after they did b company, they came to get me. i went in with that platoon. the choppers went back and picked up the second platoon, and then they went back and picked up a third platoon. >> you ultimately had your three platoons, but they were coming from different places?

>> right. >> you were with the first platoon? >> first platoon. >> now, as i understand the battle, the first few lifts in received no fire. >> that's right. >> but about lift three and four they started to get fire. where were you guys? were you in the three and four or -- >> yeah. when i landed i sensed no fire. i immediately reported to hal moore, who told me, b company is engaged. you get your company, and you join them in the left flank. so the first platoon that landed -- i led them over to where the b company flank was. i went back to wait for the second and third platoon to come in, because i, you know, had to place them when they arrived.

then i could -- by that time i could hear bullets. i could hear gunshots, and a few bullets whizzing by. >> so moore put you on the left flank of b company? >> right. >> anticipating a flanking movement? >> well, actually at that ti time -- see, the mission was when we landed the mission was going to be b company was going to initially hold the landing zone. they were going to go out in one direction. then my company would land, and we would go in a different direction, and c company would land and hold the landing zone. when the fighting started, moore said to me, okay, you guys secure the landing zone, and i've got b company moving to the west where they fire on the famous creekbed on the western

end of lz. he said, you go -- he told john herring, you go west and exploit -- not exploit, but explore what's out there. he told me to secure want landing zone. so i sent my platoon to the left of b company. they go to fight pretty quickly, the moment they got there. >> so how difficult was it to get your -- you're in charge of all three of these platoons. do you have four platoons now? >> they had taken the weapons platoons, which were by that team had become quite small, because the mortar were equipped and too heavy to carry in the jungle. >> sure. each company had come down to evolve to one -- carrying one mortar, 181, and they fired the

direction for that one mortar and a couple of additional guys to hold the ammo. so the weapons platoons had been probably halved in size. >> i see. >> and the troops had been used as infantrymen, replacement infantrymen. >> organizationally you -- as you think about it, you were thinking about three platoons. that was your responsibility. >> they had taken all those small weapons platoons and put them together at the landing zone to operate sort of as a weapons company kind of thing. >> i understand, i understand. so now you've got responsibility for three rifle platoons, most of whom -- well, most of whom except for your career korean and experienced ncos and yourself have never been in combat, never had a shot fired in anger against them.

you hit this lz, and you start taking fire shortly thereafter. how difficult was it for you to pull those platoons into their -- in their positions? >> not difficult. they landed. i met the lieutenants and said, okay, you link up with so-and-so, and 3rd platoon is right over there. this is a small landing zone. so we were going from where the helicopters landed to the creek bed wasn't more than 150 yards at most. 100 yards. and i started them in the right direction and wait for the next one to come in. >> tell me about the first -- your observations of the first reactions of your troops to enemy fire?

zoo i hit the ground and started firing wildly in the direction of the enemy. let me give you a sequence of events of what happened. it the first plap toon goes over to the left, and the second platoon lands and it goes between the first platoon and company. the third platoon lands and it go -- becomes my right flank platoon. after i got the third platoon in place, i heard intense enemy fire from the first platoon area because the creek bed came down

where the first platoon was. the fos, we go across the landing zone, and i am looking for the platoon leader. the landing zone is grassy, and there's grass there about this high which is a key factor in the fight for the next three days so when something goes to ground, you can't see them. we move over there.

he was the sergeant was dead. thegsd he's in the creek bed. they had pulled back from the creek bed due to the enemy fire. as the book points out, one of the machine guns was back, it had a lot to do with holding that sector by just staying in the fight, even after his -- he was a system machine gunner, and his machine gunner got shot in the head.

bill reaches over and puts the guys brains back in his head and gets the medic to -- the guy survived this. anyway, one of the things that i believed in, one of the things that they believe in, one of the things that i told my soldiers all the time was we're not going to leave any one of you hinz. they had a little tiny head like that. when i was in the creek bed i saw them going off in the creek bed. while i was there i found

another soldier. taft was there. i should have brought the other soldier back first, but i brought taft back and then my raid operator and i went back and brought the other soldier back. >> you say you should have brought them because one was dead or dead and alive p. what happened on the battlefield is he was responsible for that soldier. the soldiers were all lying in the grass. i told them sergeant floyd,

don't do that. you're going to get shot. he looked at me and disregarded me and the went out to rescue his soldier and got shot and died there. after that battle i always used to tell my guys, if someone is killed or someone is shot, your first responsibility is to shoot the son of bitch that shot him. if you go after him right then, the guy who shot him is going to shoot you. that's a tough lesson to learn. and that's a group that's as heroic a group of anyone in uniform lose a lot of lives going right after a wounded soldier. we think of the logic of it. someone just shot someone right the there, and until you get him, he's going to do it again.

>> well, yeah. and i can see where that difficulty, the unit cohesion thing has been studied now ever since that war. it has its positives and negatives, but overall it's a positive. >> a huge positive. i mean, it -- >> because the war -- the units that came in after that went to replacements suffered so much because nobody cared about anybody else. they were all in it for themselves, and that's a blanket statement. i shouldn't make it that way. we both know what we're talking about here. >> well, look. i don't know my background beyond this thing. i've spent the major portion of my career when i was not commanding, i was studying leadership or teaching leadership or revising army leadership, and the issues of cohesion and how you lead soldiers and all of that are sort of close and dear to my heart. >> you're a psychologist, too?

>> right. i lecture at west point and at the army war college, i have in the past. everything from rotc to infantry battalions in germany. i have this presentation give, which is called "combat leadersh leadersh leadersh leadership" -- leadership in combat in small unit operations. i talk about rifle companies and the experience of a soldier when he first goes to combat and the psychology of being in combat and what they expect of a leader and the leaders to respond and all that. >> so let's talk a little bit about when taft goes down. the leadership of that platoon falls to the platoon sergeant. >> sergeant nathan. >> was it evident to you that

the -- that that worked the way it's supposed to, and that is the next man takes over? >> yeah. >> it was -- >> yeah. i didn't -- you know, the -- i lost all three platoon leaders that day. only one killed, but two were wounded. and my forward observer, it was too late. there wasn't a discernible change that i could tell. however, i think it's important for people to understand that as a company commander, i was so busy that i wasn't observing a hell of a lot of what the enemy was coming from, where the artillery was landing, what i was supposed to do with the maintain contact with b company, all that.

i've often said it's easier to be a company commander than it is to be a pfc, because a company commander is so involved, so mentally occupied that in my case i can honestly say i did not feel much fear. the reason for it is that i didn't have space in my head for it. too much on my mind. the soldier -- the private soldier is sitting there lying in the grass waiting for someone to tell them what to do. so i think it's tougher. >> when we look back on the war now, we know that company commanders, captains at least as a rank suffered the greatest percentage of casualties as a percentage of how many were there of any other rank. >> i didn't know that. >> now, you can take into account there were some that were killed in chopper crashes

and everything else, but company commanders suffered as a percentage greater than any other rank. >> i can see that, because you're trying to move around. you're going to economic your platoon here and there, and everyone else is hunkered down, and if the commander is doing his job getting around. >> it was a company-size unit war more so than it was a battalion or brigade like it was in world war ii. >> naethat's right. >> you've lost all three platoon leaders over a two-day period? >> yeah. >> one killed, two wounded, i believe. >> actually, in the first afternoon. >> what percentage of your troops were killed or wounded? i'm thinking this only in a military effectiveness?

did you get -- did you stand down? did your unit stand down then? your company? >> not immediately. we went back, and then we were put on a defense position guarding the -- an airfield and a brigade headquarters. >> uh-huh. okay. >> a few days later we went back and stood down for just a short time. never let the infantry stand down for very long. >> i know. this was also one of the first times that we got to think about what i call the organic artillery of an m-79. did you use that? >> wonderful weapon. >> wonderful weapon? >> that's right. >> shooting in the trees, because there were va in the trees. how about the competence with that weapon? did you feel like they knew what to do with it, and that they liked carrying it?

>> it wasn't an issue because we hadn't experienced any heavy combat before. i think they were confident with it. everyone liked to see that little thing. you could watch it go out there and explode and make big noise and so forth. we all liked it. i think they liked it. i think as the war evolved a lot of them wanted the current m-16 also because of the rain and they eventually came up with the m-16 combination with the -- >> they came up with essentially a shotgun shell for that first round if you were on patrol, so you had a little more and you could defend yourself at least with the first shot. >> right. >> what about your cruiser, what about the m-60? >> they worked fine. i mean, we didn't have -- again, i'm not aware of any sort of major grievances with the m-60

machine gun. >> the laws, we were testing those for one of the first times, too? >> yeah. we carried a couple per platoon and joe marm, that was the way he started his charge across the open clearing to get a machine gun behind an ant hill, you shot that into the ant hill. it worked. as far as i know, that was the only -- they didn't have targets to speak of. >> i ask these questions about weapons because you guys were the laboratory. >> yeah, yeah. later on. the marines used to bitch like hell about the m-16, and my response was that's because they don't clean their rifles. we didn't have a lot of problems with them. we had problems with other things like medevac and so forth. i had problems with -- the biggest problem i had in the

battlefield was that before the major assault took place that afternoon was to go get

we had an air force fact on the ground but there were air force facts in the air. we had for the army helicopters it was just radio contact with the choppers. >> i see. >> with the flight leaders. >> join us next weekend for more oral histories from the vietnam

archive. that's saturday at 8:00 a.m., sunday at 3:00 p.m., and monday at 4:00 a.m. eastern. for more information and to watch past oral histories, visit our website cspan.org/history. next a look at our recent visit to little rock, arkansas. a look at the city's rich history and literary culture. our watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. my name is christine mouw and i'm the curator at the clinton presidential library of little rock, arkansas. it consists of 100,000 to 140,000 items. we don't have a final number yet. we're going through everything that came to us from washington, d.c. we have lots of gifts, things that the american people thought that bill clinton would like to own. we have videotapes.

we have dvds. we have portraits of them done by adults, by children, by everyone. we have portraits on notebook paper. we have portraits on oil. beautiful things. we have a lot of t-shirts and baseball caps in our collection, probably about 25% of our collection almost is baseball caps and t-shirts. these were given to president clinton as -- if he visited some place, and they wanted to give him a momento of their tone or organization or something like that. sometimes they have causes on them, too. we have some nafta items, t-shirts and things like that that relate to a specific event. but the collection really representing what was important to the american people during the presidency of bill clinton. they thought it was important to send to the president during the presidency. i think that's one of the most interesting things about our collection. those things are all here along with the head of state gifts. those are also here in our collection. nose a

those are items given to the president in an official capacity. gifts given to the head of one government by the head of another government. the horse clock, it's a lovely piece. it's got malachite on the bottom and silver and gold. the horse is silver. it's a gift from the prince in saudi arabia. it was given to president clinton when he visited washington in 1998. this piece right here is a nativity scene that was given to president clinton by i can't sayer earafat on one of the his visits to the united states in 1997 i think it was. >> what's it made out of? >> mother-of-pearl. mother-of-pearl. different colors. on the cart here we have a few other things.

what a great hat. i do like this hat, because it says on the front, bill clinton, washington, d.c., 52nd presidential inaugural. it looks like a regular old hat, but it's a man logic hat. it pops open. let me get it to see. we have a city scene of washington, d.c. in the hat. this was gin by a don or, just an american citizen who lives in virginia. nice, little piece. we had these great tennis shoes. a man in california made them, painted for the president. the presidential seal on the side with bill clinton. i got to show you the backs. the backs say numero uno and the

chief. got 42nd president right here. 42nd president. nice piece. not something you see every day. this is an interesting piece. this is actually a campaign piece that was given to president clinton by a donor from england, actually. i don't know how they got it or why they have it. you can plug this into your outlet in your car, and it likes up. it's a brake light that says go for clinton when you apply the brakes. i like that, too. it's a great box that says for the director of a play that covers the world stage. it's actually a paperweight. let me get the cover off here. it's a giant aspirin. it's made out of ceramic, i think. >> what goes through your mind as these come in?

>> these have been here as we find them. we found a lot of these doing the inventory. usually call someone over and say, look what we found today? we're keeping a file of the really cool things that we find so we can find them back more easily so if people like you want to see them, we have a file of things that are great. this is another one we like a lot. do you recognize it? it's mister rogers trolley. wooden model of the trolley. and on the top -- let me tip it so you can see it. for the clinton family with love from your friends in the neighborhood, fred rodgers, 1993. isn't that nice? i saw a photo of him giving had it to president clinton, and president clinton has his head thrown back and he's laughing. it's nice. mr. rodgers is sitting next to him on the park bench. >> this was a voting machine used in dade county, florida.

it's one of the infamous machines that were controversial during the 2000 election. it's got some -- the instructions we looked at before, and they're a little confusing. you slide the ballot in, and then you use the stylus to punch a hole into the ballot. the stylus is pretty small. this is one of the -- so what it would produce, everyone knows as chads. we actually have a bag of the chads that came out of the machine. one of our staff members spent hours collecting all those from the bottom of the voting machine, put them all in baggies. so our next piece is a music stand from the hot springs jazz band, the dance band. it's what it's sometimes called. bill clinton played in the stardusters band in the 1960s while he was in high school. this might or might not be from

his time period. we're not exactly positive, but it's from the 1960s found in a basement in hot springs in 1969. someone kept it until a few years ago when they donated it to us and thought we might like to have it. we said, yes, please, we would love to have this in our collection. it's a great piece. tons of conservation work done on it, and it's made on mason night and it comes in a couple of couple pieces so they can carry it with them. >> what's the best and worst part about your job? >> i think the best part is you never know what you're going to see or find. when opening up all these boxes, and it's almost like christmas every day. you never know exactly what you'll find. that's definitely the best part. the worst part? i can't think of anything off the top of my head. it's all fun. we get to take care of great things. some of our stuff looks really new, so sometimes people say why do you ware glovear glovhe